Study on the Diploma Supplement as seen by its users - naric

the project of Bologna, the CoHE has been organizing site visits, national information
conferences and regional meetings in different cities to inform HE staff coming from different
universities on how to calculate the student workload. Additionally, she argued that every
academicians should be aware of their own responsibilities in measuring student workload
and that they can not cover whatever they want to cover in that framework. She also added
that under the supervision of CoHE, a new commission was formed to define “what should
be the qualifications in each Bologna level?”
The other members of the DS Team at Hacettepe University mentioned two essential
questions needed to be answered while describing the “programme requirements” during the
studies in each Bologna level:
- What are the demands of labour market?”
- To what extent do HEIs respond to labour market needs?
HEIs should present a precise answer to these questions at first since it is totally inaccurate
to define the qualifications in “purely academic” way. On one hand, “purely academic”
qualifications facilitate access to the further education, on the other hand this reminds us this
essential question, “who will employ these students?” Students also expect the HEIs to
guarantee them a qualification that facilitate also their access to labour market. That’s why;
such a framework including learning outcomes, skills, competences reached during the
studies should take into account both academic and professional learning which may be
more relevant to the labour market and provide a balance between the interests of various
stakeholders.
Another topic discussed during the meeting was the situation of graduates, having followed
also the minor courses, along with his major courses. Here, the problem is the fact that there
is no information stated in DS, concerning the learning outcomes, skills, competences
defining the qualification.
After the first session, all the participants made a short visit to Registrar’s Office to see where
DSs are published.
2.2 Current Situation
The second session of the meeting was attended by all participants of the first session,
including also the vice rector, Hasan KAZDAGLI.
ECTS and the calculation of student workload were the first topic of the second session.
The vice president of Hacettepe University discussed two questions;
‣ The number of ECTS Credits
In Turkey, the bachelor degree is awarded after four years of education. At this point, Guy
AELTERMAN underscored the fact that in the calculation of ECTS credits, they don’t count
the years of education, but the student workload.
‣ The way how to calculate ECTS
The participants from Hacettepe University argued that ECTS credits at Hacettepe
University does not fully reflect the students’ workload and they should involve students
in drafting DS/ECTS activities to make them be more at outcome based, not at imput
based. They also told that HE staff responsible for ECTS/DS studies have started to
review curriculum and establish quality development mechanisms to ensure more
student-centered approach.
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